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Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Super-powers

Sometimes when you are online, one of those quiz things comes along. You know, the kind that asks you a whole long list of random questions about yourself.

Before you realize that nobody really cares about the answers except you, and that it is just a pitiful way to express your hope that someone out there in the electronic nexxus actually gives a hoot about your preferences, you might fill out the answers. Well, anyway, I did. I admit it.

One question came up now and then on the odd quiz, a question that used to stump me, and it was, "If you could have any super-power, what super-power would you want?"

I've never been much of a comic book reader, so I wasn't even much aware of what ideological super-powers were out there to be coveted. I did see The Incredibles, so that gave me a few ideas: Super strength? No. Elastic body motion? Ugh no. The ability to freeze things in an instant? Um, why??? Super-speed. No. The ability to create a safe force-field around yourself and to disappear? Maybe. That is the only one that holds any appeal for me at all.

Then of course there are things like being able to spew spiderweb from your hands and climb the sides of skyscrapers. Definite no there; I hate both stickiness and heights. And please, don't even mention x-ray vision. No Thank You.

This question always put me at sixes and nines, until a couple of days ago when I realized what super-power I do long for.

It is a terrible feeling to be the mother and not to be able to make your baby better. This is true no matter how old your baby gets.

David has been sick for so long. My heart just aches. He puts forth such effort, studying, exercising, practicing, eating healthy food. And instead of getting well, he gets his iPod stolen. And then he gets sicker. And then he misses classes. And then school gets harder and harder to keep up with and the dream of becoming a doctor starts to feel as though it might be slipping away.

So as a mother, I pray. I pray and I cook. I boil chickens and I make tea. I make soup. I make doctor's appointments. I buy medicine and supplements. And I pray. I go to bed praying and I wake up praying, and I pray through the day. Sometimes I whimper while I am praying.

Sometimes I come up behind David while he is sitting and studying, and I rub his back and pray, but it usually makes me start to cry when I do that, so then I have to run off because it isn't a good thing when I cry.

I know that God has a plan, but what if His plan is not for David to be a strong, healthy doctor? I know we need to rest in that, accept that, trust that God's alternative is always, in the heavenly economy, a better alternative. It's just hard sometimes to focus on the heavenly economy when we live in the earthly one.

Jesus healed. I love to read in the gospels about how Jesus healed people. He healed a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years; she'd spent all her money on doctors (we can relate to that one), and, desperate, she reached out to touch the hem of Jesus' garment in the middle of a crowd, and when she did, His healing immediately spread throughout her body. Jesus healed people with leprosy, lame people, blind people and deaf people. He healed Peter's mother-in-law of a fever. He also brought people back from the dead, but I wouldn't want to do that.

Jesus' disciples healed a little bit while He was on earth, and more after He had gone up to heaven and sent them His Holy Spirit. The apostle Paul was so filled with the Spirit that Acts 19:11-12 says, "And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them."

If they could heal like that, I sure wish I could, too. Jesus was God incarnate, but Peter and John and Paul were just people, like us. Do I only need more faith?

Shawn says that if I had the gift of healing, I'd never get any sleep.

I would miss sleep. But just imagine the feeling of being a transmitter of God's power to the sick, to be able to touch the cancer patient and see her come back to health, see the pain and nausea and fear melt away. Imagine being able to soothe the stomach of the colicky baby in an instant, to be able to wipe the acne off a teenager's face with the brush of your fingertips, to be able to undo all the effects of fevers, lung disease, heart disease, diabetes, autism and alzheimers. Imagine being able to use your hands to apply the power of God to an accident victim who is bleeding out, to be able to stop the blood flow and knit the bones together and see all the tears around you turn to relief and joy. And because it would be by the power of God who made us and understands everything about us, the healing would be perfect, total, no side effects, no trade-offs.

6 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Dearest Ruthie, My Mother (Grandma) heart is breaking for you and I feel tears. I'm beginning right now to pray for your dear David....God is faithful! Philippians 4:6 has been especially helpful for me.... "...everything by prayer...with thanksgiving...." I'm lovingly concerned for all of you. ~ Pauline

Ah Ruth, I am sorry to read this post. I have a small idea of how you feel. My son Sean's health is almost always weak and he seems to always have some ailment or other. He is 12 now and still having one problem or another but thankfully nothing major.

Thank you for asking about David. He is stable now; no blood coming up. He still has the cough he has had since last January. Yesterday (Thanksgiving) we were playing a family game and every time he laughed he went into a coughing fit. On Wednesday, he had a lung CT scan, which didn't show anything unusual. He is tentatively scheduled for a bronchoscopy on December 20th, after his classes and finals are over for the semester. We are starting a strict diet today with no sugar at all, no grains, very low carb, and no dairy except for kefir. He will be eating a lot of meat, legumes, nuts, and vegetables. We pray that God will work in this.